


Need and Want

by PhoenixFalls



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 5 Times, Angst, Canon Compliant, Declarations Of Love, Interracial Relationship, M/M, Mutual Pining, POV Character of Color, Post-IM3, Present Tense, Rhodey Feels, Rhodey Is a Good Bro, Tony Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-02
Updated: 2014-03-02
Packaged: 2018-01-14 05:31:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1254742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhoenixFalls/pseuds/PhoenixFalls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony always <i>needs</i> Rhodey.</p><p>(Or, five times Jim said 'No,' and the one time he was finally able to say 'Yes.')</p>
            </blockquote>





	Need and Want

It’s 1987, and Tony is peering up at him blearily from the wreckage of his latest robotics project. He’s been up for three days straight, running on caffeine and adrenaline, desperate to have something to impress Howard with when he swings through Boston to pick up another award. But the bot’s fragile identity matrix collapsed in on itself and now Tony is defeated, slumping into sleep over his keyboard.

Jim gets his shoulder under Tony’s limp arm and pulls him up to his feet. “C’mon, time for bed. You can try again in the morning.”

Tony doesn’t resist, but when he’s flat on his back his hand tightens on Jim’s, keeping Jim suspended over him.

“Today sucks. Make it better?”

His eyes are pleading, and while Jim is caught by them his other hand sneaks up to rest lightly at Jim’s waist.

Jim tries to make his voice stern, but it comes out hushed and breathless. “Tony. . .”

“Please. I need you, need something good, someone I can make happy. . .”

Jim closes his eyes and straightens up out of Tony’s reach. “Go to sleep. I’ll wake you in time for class.”

* * *

It’s 1991, and Tony is sprawled across a hotel armchair, surrounded by tiny empty bottles of gin from the mini fridge. Howard and Maria Stark are dead, and Stane has gone to the board to get himself appointed CEO in light of Tony’s ‘immaturity.’

Jim thinks Tony’s passed out, and is setting a large glass of water and an empty trash can in Tony’s line of sight and rearranging him more comfortably when there are lips pressed to his.

“Knew you’d come, honeybear. Gonna take me to bed at last?”

Jim doesn’t pull back for a long moment, committing Tony’s kiss, drunk and despairing as it is, to memory. Then he stands and holds out a hand to pull Tony to his feet.

“Yeah I’m gonna take you to bed. Take you to bed, tuck you in, and if you’re very good maybe I’ll even read you a bedtime story. But first, you gotta sit up and get some water in you, okay?”

Tony grumbles as Jim manhandles him through rehydrating, brushing his teeth, and taking some aspirin prophylactically. But when he starts to pull off his shirt, Jim pushes him into the bedroom and reaches to close the door.

Tony grabs it, lazy seduction falling off his face to reveal naked fear. “Please don’t go. I need you, I can’t be alone tonight.”

Jim takes a deep breath, then reaches out to pull Tony’s shirt back down. “Of course. But everybody’s clothes stay on, and I better not wake up with your hard-on poking me in the ass.”

* * *

It’s 1998, and Tony is dressing to go out, slicking his hair back with gel and shrugging a leather jacket on over his tight black turtleneck. Ru’s affair with Ty Stone is splashed all over the tabloids, and Tony wants to prove exactly how unaffected he is by the betrayal.

Jim is nursing a beer out on the deck, splitting his attention between Tony and the hypnotic ebb and flow of the waves below. He’s looking out over the water when Tony presses hotly up against his back, hands resting low over his hips. “Come out with me tonight, babe. You only have twelve more hours of leave and we’ve barely done any partying at all.”

Jim shivers a little, but Tony doesn’t notice because he’s trembling too, twitchy and distracted in a way that has nothing to do with stress or depression and everything to do with the traces of white powder on the coffee table. He shakes his head.

“Sorry Tones, I’m in the mood for a quiet night in.”

Tony presses closer, breath hot against the nape of Jim’s neck, but Jim straightens up, keeping his posture stiff, and eventually Tony sighs in disappointment and hangs his head so his forehead rests between Jim’s shoulderblades.

“Please, I just need you to help distract me for a bit, need to forget everything for a night.”

Jim wants, badly, to say yes, because he’s never heard Tony sound so hopeless before. So broken.

But he can’t spend the last night before a six month deployment to the Middle East watching Tony lose himself in a haze of sex, drugs, and alcohol, can’t make that his last memory of his best friend. He wants to ask Tony to stay in instead, but when he turns and puts a little distance between them Tony’s desperation is writ plainly in the pained twist of his mouth, in every tense line of his body.

So Jim swallows what he was going to say, takes a deep breath, and turns Tony towards the door.

“Not tonight, Tony. But make it back before dawn and we’ll get a farewell breakfast together, all right? We’ll go to that place you love, with the plate-sized espresso-and-chocolate pancakes.”

* * *

It’s 2004, and Tony’s voice sounds so good over the line that Jim forgives him the blatant abuse of his military resources that got this phone in Jim’s hand barely an hour after he completed a top secret op under a communications blackout.

“Rhodey! I have got to tell you about this new girl I found, Pepper, she’s fantastic, has Obie and the board wrapped around her finger and has the bots eating out of the palm of her hand. She’s turned JARVIS against me, has him shutting down my workshop half an hour before important appointments, but I forgive them both because they found me the best coffee. . .”

Jim’s grinning too hard, pressing the phone so tightly to his ear that the cartilage aches, just letting Tony’s voice wash over him. He doesn’t have a point – he never has a point when he calls like this, as far as Jim can tell, just needing someone he neither created nor employs to vent to.

But Jim only has five minutes, so when four have passed he starts making noises to go. Tony doesn’t resist, for once, just stops in the middle of a sentence and says “Right.” The silence lingers for a moment, neither of them wanting to say goodbye.

Finally, Jim bangs his head back against the wall and forces himself to be the adult. “It was good to hear from you. You shouldn’t have done it, of course, but—“

“I know. I know, Rhodey. I just needed to hear your voice. Needed to know you were okay.” His voice is as tired as Jim feels.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. Chute opened easy and I wasn’t on the ground more than a couple hours. It’s just a couple broken bones.”

Tony huffs out a laugh. “Yeah. Well, you better leave space on the casts for me to sign.”

* * *

It’s 2009, and Tony is finally letting Jim see the specs on the Iron Man suit. The whole day is like being sent back in time by two decades, just the two of them drinking beers and talking about aerodynamics, about firepower, about the amount of stress the human body can take.

But as the sun begins to set, Jim can tell that Tony has something he wants to say. He waits, and eventually his patience is rewarded.

“I’m pretty sure I’m in love with Pepper.”

Jim can’t help the clench in his chest, but he can keep it off his face. He takes a long drink and when he speaks his voice is light, teasing.

“Is that supposed to be news, Tony?”

Tony is surprised into a laugh. “Hey, it was news to me! I just thought I was madly in lust with her all this time!”

Jim clinks their bottles together. “Congratulations, man. I’m happy for you. You deserve it. Pepper probably doesn’t, but she’s put up with you this long. . .”

Tony’s grinning like the giant sap he is, but after a minute his eyes darken. He puts his beer down and looks away, suddenly vulnerable. His voice is rough.

“I still need you, you know. You found me in that godforsaken desert, in my workshop after Obie ripped my heart out. I’ll always need you.”

Quicker than thought Jim’s hands are gripping Tony’s shoulders, forcing Tony to look him in the eye. “No. You got yourself out of that desert. You put yourself back together after what Stane did. You’re a big damn hero, Tony, a truly great man, and I am honored to be your friend. You don’t need me for anything any more.”

Tony’s eyes are wide and a little wet, and the air between them is thick.

JARVIS chimes softly, the alert that the dinner delivery has arrived. Jim breaks the eye contact and settles back into his chair. “Go on, you said you were paying, and I’m starved.”

* * *

It’s 2014, and Tony is happy. He’s healthy, he’s saved the world, he’s probably going to win a Nobel Prize. He and Pepper are two of the wealthiest and most beloved people on the planet, and neither of them is waking up screaming from nightmares much anymore.

Jim is happy for him, really.

Tonight is for Jim, though, to celebrate being awarded the Medal of Honor. Tony and Pepper take him out to _Marcel’s_ after the ceremony, all three of them still dressed in their best, and they spend nearly four hours eating and drinking and talking. Laughing.

When they absolutely cannot sit in the polished wood chairs any longer, they head back to the tower, now mostly repaired. Pepper has an early meeting, so she gives Jim a hug and kisses Tony good night. They both watch her as she walks away, hips swaying, casual as she slips out of her heels and leaves them in the middle of the floor.

Tony starts getting more comfortable as well, toeing off his shoes, tossing his jacket and tie over a chair. He heads over to the bar and pulls out a sleek black wooden box which proves to hold a fairly plain glass bottle filled with a deep reddish liquid.

“This single malt is older than you are, if not by much. I picked it up last time I was in Japan and have been saving it for a special occasion. This definitely qualifies.”

They take the bottle and a couple glasses out to the balcony. The night is cool, but JARVIS has the wind shields up and the heaters on, so Jim unbuttons his uniform coat. The medal is a welcome weight against his chest.

They sit sipping the whiskey in companionable silence. Tony is standing, leaning back against the clear panels; Jim kicks his feet up on the table and unbuttons a bit further. Tony’s eyes follow his hands, heavy with something Jim isn’t willing to see with Pepper just a few rooms away.

Tony tears his eyes away and clears his throat.

“So. Here’s the thing. You were right – I don’t need you any more.”

Jim freezes, heart suddenly pounding, breath caught in his throat.

“I don’t need you. I don’t need to please you, because I’ve made my peace with my inability to please Howard. I don’t need you to help fight off the loneliness, because somehow I have more friends than I ever imagined I would. I don’t need you to distract me, because I don’t want to forget anything any more. I don’t need reassurance, because I built you a suit that keeps you safer than the entire Air Force could. I don’t need you to rescue me from anything, because I built myself a suit too.”

Tony looks up, eyes blazing.

“But Rhodey – Jim – I still want you. I’ve wanted you since I was a pimply fourteen year old lost in the Infinite Corridor. I’ve wanted you through getting wasted together and getting beat up together and saving the world together. I’ve jerked off to thoughts of you more times than I can count, and I’m pretty sure I’m gonna want you ‘til the day I die.”

Jim can’t look away, can’t raise his voice above a whisper. “Pepper?”

“Knows I’ve been in love with you for almost thirty years, and likes you quite a bit herself. So now, cards on the table. I want you, Jim. Are you ever gonna admit you want me too?”

Jim is standing, closing the space between them in an instant. “Fuck yes,” and they’re kissing, open-mouthed and frantic, tongues and hands tangling, pressed so closely together that Jim’s inhale forces Tony’s exhale.

When they finally pull apart, breathless and achingly hard, Tony grins, bright and wicked. “About damn time.”

**Author's Note:**

> I know virtually nothing about programming, corporate structure, Marvel comic characters, and the military; I tried to be vague enough for plausibility, but I nonetheless do apologize if I've gotten any of those details egregiously wrong. If you're curious, the restaurant mentioned in section #3 is [The Griddle Cafe,](http://www.thegriddlecafe.com/) and the pancakes are called the "Eyes Wide Open;" [this](http://www.marcelsdc.com/) is the Marcel's, [this](http://www.bornrich.com/japans-expensive-single-malt-yamazaki-50-year-sale.html) is the whiskey, and [this](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_Corridor) is the Infinite Corridor mentioned in section #6.
> 
> As always, if you want updates on how my fic writing is coming, or you just want to say hi, you can [friend me on LiveJournal](http://phoenixfalls.livejournal.com/) or [follow me on tumblr](http://phoenixfalls.tumblr.com/).


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